Thursday, September 3, 2009

Zombie Week: Me & Zombie, Sitting in a Tree [don't gasp, I decapitate in the end]

In this post I decided to chill a bit and let my thoughts out from the stables and in the lush green fields to do whatever thoughts do best, roam free as a river. So Zombie Week is full swing, which I promise to check out in full detail, when this hellish week is over with, but I want to slow down a bit with the festivities and just ramble about zombies, me and my love with these horrifying creatures.

I had no inkling about what exactly to talk about in this post about zombies, until CJ asked a great question in the comment section on my Gallery post on Sunday. Why do I love zombies? It’s not an easy thing to answer and my comment reply was a very clumsy attempt or at least a very slimmed down version. My introduction to zombies came somewhere around my sixth or perhaps it was my eight year, pretty early in adolescence. My father was watching a horror movie with the undead in a hospital and after seeing a very bloody bathroom and shuffling nurses, I immediately developed a phobia of the dark and hospitals as well ill lit rooms, while zombies continued to haunt me. I had very Romero style dreams, where I stayed asleep long enough to know for sure I became zombie munchies.

Way to go, dad. In this case though I might thank him, because after all zombies are awesome.

But in spite of this condition I returned to zombies like a very stupid moth with accelerated healing factor to a very powerful electric lantern. I guess to a point I liked to be scared and to be honest I still have no recollection of any cognitive decision on why I would willingly scare the crap out of myself. As I began to write more, read more and think more on why people did things for story purposes I began to discover why I had this masochistic love-terror exchange with zombies. For one I built resilience to this and soon the nights didn’t seem so scary, because I got used to zombies. I wasn’t scared of blood and gore on television and I certainly could stomach some in real life. This is highly individual though, since zombies are my personal phobia and story of overcoming them and then beginning to enjoy the stories behind them. Different people have their personal boogeyman that may be rooted in reality or in fiction.

However what people cannot deny is that the zombie is one of the scariest monsters and a wide for interpretation symbol and metaphor. I have been speaking about the zombie as the reflection of the consumer behavior in rendering people generic in their unity to mindlessly buy more and more without considering whether they really need what they buy or not. This is the flesh eating behavior in zombies that wander aimlessly and eat whenever they get the chance as much as possible until everything is gone. However this consumerism behavior is killing not only individualism, but creativity as people are preoccupied with buying choosing and replacing items they already possess with newer models, because trends demand it and what’s society than not one big trend. I’d also go as far as stating that it also whacks off intellect, since we are busy sorting through advertisements and working to buy, buy, buy. And this is reflected in the zombie effortlessly, in its slack eyes and faint shuffle. The zombie captures the fatigue and the hollowness we all get emotionally when we sit down after twelve hours at the work place, turn the TV on and shut our brains out.

All in all zombies are the spokesperson for this century’s vices, which is evident from their rise into popularity in video games, movies and fiction.

PS: Here is a wee treat from my favorite Youtube lady, Venetian Princess:

8 comments:

Misty said...

Best post title ever! Great stuff. :)
My dad and your dad would get along, I think. When I was 7 or so, we were all watching Nightmare on Elm Street (way past my bedtime), and my dad, who normally tries to make me jump by thumping the back of the couch, got up and left the room just before the end of the movie, and never came back for the end.
We just assumed he'd gone to the bathroom, so when the movie ended, I got up and went to my room to get ready for bed. I pulled open my closet and something glinted...My dad had gone into the kitchen, taped butterknives to every finger on one hand like Freddy Krueger, and was waiting in my closet to scare me. Sick. Okay, I guess my dad is worse, since yours just let you watch the movie and be terrified on your own; mine tried to actively terrify me...

Harry Markov said...

Yeah, your dad is way worse that my father has been. I think that my simply didn't care whether I was there or not, but it was a life changing experience. Hah. Your dad is very twisted. XD

And thanks for the compliment about the title.

Heather G. said...

Awesome. Your posts are full of zombie loving! Thanks.

Harry Markov said...

You're welcome. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Ellz said...

I love the title of this post too, very creative. The video was funny-he eats cheese and I eat arteries -ewwww.
I too am afraid of the dark and ill lit rooms, though I am not sure it is because of zombies or those creepy Friday the 13th movies.

Harry Markov said...

The video is amazing. Venetian Princess produces the most spectacularly hilarious parodies in the world. But that is my sense of humor tickled. :)

Anyway the fear of darkness seems to be premordial, so don't worry. The dark spooks even the bravest man.

~The Book Pixie said...

oh my geekers that video is freaky. lol.

~Briana

Harry Markov said...

Yeah. I was amazed that she could rhyme arteries. Cheese is not exactly the most direct rhyme choice, but it does a decent job and adds quite the hilarity factor.

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